Chicago & Washington DC—The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) encourage librarians from institutions of all sizes to learn what they can do to support the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP3) effort to facilitate open access publishing.

An information session with Dr. Salvatore Mele, Project Leader of the Open Access Section and Interim Project Manager for SCOAP3 at the CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research, will be held at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Denver, Saturday, January 24, 2009, 10:30 a.m.–noon, at the Colorado Convention Center, Room 705. No registration is necessary to attend this event.

Find out how this experiment in new funding models is progressing, get the straight scoop on how libraries can participate, and learn about the project’s potential to inform scholarly publishing more globally. SCOAP3 is a valuable addition to the diverse mix of strategies aiming to ensure the future of high-quality journals. For background reading on why libraries should consider supporting SCOAP3, see:

“The Audacity of SCOAP3,” an essay by Ivy Anderson, Director of Collections, California Digital Library, and “Taking Action on SCOAP3,” an article by Julia Blixrud, both in ARL: A Bimonthly Report, no. 257 (April 2008), http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/br/br257.shtml.

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is a division of the American Library Association (ALA), representing more than 13,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments. ACRL is on the Web at http://www.acrl.org/.

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 123 research libraries in North America. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/.

SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), with SPARC Europe and SPARC Japan, is an international alliance of more than 800 academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication. SPARC’s advocacy, educational, and publisher partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research. SPARC is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/sparc/.